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State Dept. Lashes Out at Gulf Countries Over Qatar Embargo

President Trump and Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson in May in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.Credit...Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The State Department on Tuesday issued a blistering critique of Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries for enforcing a two-week embargo against Qatar without giving the tiny country any specific ways to resolve a crisis over accusations of Qatar’s funding of terrorism.

The statement seemed to put President Trump and Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson further at odds about who is to blame for the dispute, which threatens a host of American diplomatic and security priorities in the gulf.

The State Department also announced that, despite Mr. Trump’s direction that Mr. Tillerson assist in resolving the impasse, the secretary of state was all but washing his hands of it.

“Now that it has been more than two weeks since the embargo has started, we are mystified that the gulf states have not released to the public nor to the Qataris the details about the claims they are making toward Qatar,” Heather Nauert, the department’s spokeswoman, said in a news briefing.

“The more time goes by, the more doubt is raised about the actions taken by Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E.,” she said, referring to the United Arab Emirates, which joined the Saudi embargo along with Egypt and Bahrain.

“At this point,” she added, “we are left with one simple question: Were the actions really about their concerns regarding Qatar’s alleged support for terrorism, or were they about the long simmering grievances” among countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council, who share both common interests and rivalries.

She noted that Mr. Trump had offered Mr. Tillerson as an intermediary, but she said that Mr. Tillerson’s interactions with leaders from the region had led him to conclude that his mediation role was not necessary and “that they’ll be able to work this out on their own.”

The last time the State Department gave an update on the dispute among Sunni Muslim nations in the Persian Gulf, Mr. Tillerson called for a “calm and thoughtful dialogue” to resolve the dispute. Then, barely an hour later, Mr. Trump accused Qatar of being a “funder of terrorism at a very high level” and demanded that the energy-rich nation cut off that flow of money and rejoin the circle of responsible nations.

Mr. Trump then lavished praise on Saudi Arabia’s monarch as “my friend, King Salman,” who hosted the president in May in Riyadh.

With Mr. Trump squarely on their side, Saudi Arabia and its allies have done little to resolve the dispute, with the Saudi foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, promising on Friday in London to “soon” release a list of “grievances” involving Qatar, which hosts an American base that is crucial in the fight against the Islamic State.

Mr. Tillerson canceled a trip this week to attend a meeting of the Organization of American States in Cancun, Mexico, to instead stay home so he could continue to help resolve the dispute in the gulf.

Many countries in the gulf allow funding to groups or organizations that are considered by Western countries to encourage extremism or underwrite terrorism. Saudi Arabia, for instance, has long underwritten mosques around the world that teach a stark form of Islam strongly associated with extremism.

Before joining the administration, Mr. Tillerson was the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, which has extensive dealings with Qatar.

Mr. Tillerson has been sympathetic to the Qataris in the dispute, initially calling on Saudi Arabia and its allies to unconditionally lift the embargo on Qatar while negotiations continued.

Since the embargo against Qatar was announced on June 5, Mr. Tillerson has had more than 20 phone calls and meetings with leaders from the gulf and elsewhere, Ms. Nauert said, adding that among those were two in-person meetings with Mr. al-Jubeir.

Despite the work, the parties remain far apart, and Ms. Nauert suggested Mr. Tillerson would try to stay out of the dispute.

“We see this as long-simmering tensions that have been going on for quite some time, and that is why we believe that this can be resolved peacefully among the parties without the United States having to step in in some sort of formal mediation role, that they can do this on their own, and we’re asking them to ‘Let’s move this along,’” Ms. Nauert said.

In remarks to reporters this week, Qatar’s foreign minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, said that the country could not hope to resolve the crisis until Saudi Arabia and its partners provided specific reasons for their embargo. “We do not know these reasons,” he said.

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A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 15 of the New York edition with the headline: State Dept. Lashes Out Over Qatar Embargo. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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